Shoegaze is a rock subgenre originating in the late 80s that blends psychedelic rock and post punk. It's characterized by an effects heavy guitar tone creating a Phil Specteresque 'wall of sound.' The genre is called 'shoegaze' or 'shoegazing' because guitarists used so many effects pedals that they were constantly staring at their shoes.

Q: Can you give some examples?

Well to start there's the definitive album of the genre, as well as the 90s and all music ever. I'm talking of course about Loveless by My Bloody Valentine (the second greatest band ever).

Anyway, My Bloody Valentine formed in Dublin, Ireland in the 80s and were named after a horror movie. At first their sound was influenced by scary sounding bands like the Cramps and the Birthday Party, and a few Eps later started dabbling in twee pop. By the time they recorded their first proper album, Isn't Anything they had matured into the shoegaze band we all know and love. By the time they recorded their next album Loveless no other band sounded quite like them.

Q: What about after Loveless?

Well, there isn't anything after Loveless.* Guitarist and bandleader Kevin Shields claimed to be working on a followup but 20 years and a reunion later, nothing's been released. In the meantime, you can go through their discography in reverse chronological order.

Their next album Darklands is also quite good, as is the compilation Barbed Wire Kisses. Later albums decline in quality somewhat. It's best to approach their discography chronologically.

Medicine is another noise pop band as well as the best first wave shoegaze band this side of the Atlantic. It's best to start with their debut Shot Worth Self Living and going chronologically from there.

Dream pop is a vague, broad genre that also overlaps with shoegaze. Cocteau Twins are one of the most important dream pop bands and are often described as having an ethereal sound. This was achieved through a combination of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser's glossolalia (speaking in tongues) and guitarist Robin Guthrie's extensive use of modulation effects which produced synth-like guitar tones.

Although it's popularity peaked in the early 90s, shoegaze is far from a dead genre. One of the ways it lives on is through fusions with other genres, which have been occurring since the beginning. (click for videos)

hard rock

With songs all about fast cars and fast living, Swervedriver is sort of the ZZ Top of shoegaze.

A trio of bands with overlapping personel based around the performance venue and effects pedal manufacturer Death by Audio play an extra loud blend of shoegaze and noise rock. A Place to Bury Strangers is the most popular of the three, but Skywave was the first of the three. Last but not least, Ceremony , true to their name, are heavily influenced by New Order.

metal

There are many bands that mix metal and shoegaze, such as Alcest who mixes shoegaze with black metal and Jesu who mixes shoegaze with doom metal.

electronic

Although shoegaze started out as a genre centered around guitar sounds, many artists, such as Ulrich Schnauss and M83 take a more synth driven approach.

ETC.

space rock

Space rock originated in the late 60s as an intermediate between psychedelic and progressive rock with leaders including Pink Floyd, Hawkwind and the German Kosmische scene. In the late 80s, a new wave of space rock bands emerged that were more influenced by punk than prog. These new space rock bands had stylistic similarities to shoegaze with their effects driven psychedelia.

Spacemen3 can best be summed up by their motto “taking drugs to make music to take drugs to.” Spiritualized was formed by former members of Spacemen 3 and presented a softer, more refined version of space rock. Loop cut a blazing wah-fueled path through the far reaches of the heavens and The Telescopes mixed calm and fury, sometimes featuring screamed vocals, a rarity in shoegaze.

Pomplamoose fucked around with this message at Aug 24, 2011 around 20:12

This is a great thread, as I've just been getting into this genre recently. One more recent band delving into this general area is The Horrors , who began life as caricature goth punks making music like this (forgive the lovely youtube):

and with their third album (which is absolutely fantastic by the way, I strongly urge you to pick it up) went all out 80's. This is the only song from it on youtube that I could find and it's not the best example of their sound on this album. But yeah check them out.

Sometimes
people need a reminder
that Nazis are supposed to be
on the wrong end of the gun.

Shredded Hen

The Horrors have a new album out? I should really check into that.

I only have Primary Colours by them, but I love it. Scarlet Fields is my favorite track of theirs. More post-punk sounding than a lot of shoegaze artists but still definitely shoegaze. Super creepy atmosphere, too.

As far as fuzzed-out, effect-driven guitar noise is concerned, I've always enjoyed Sonic Youth's track Theresa's Sound World, from Dirty. It might not be quite the same sound, but, to me, it delivers the same feel. That golden 90's alternative feel.

As far as newer music is concerned, I think the best releases recently have been Widowspeak's s/t and Crystal Stilts' In Love With Oblivion. Widowspeak do a pretty nice cover of Wicked Game by Chris Isaak which is the B-side to their Gun Shy single.

W/r/t actual Shoegaze (from the 90s) I feel like Delaware by Drop Nineteens is probably my favorite record, it's easily the one I come back to most. Even though they get overshadowed by the bigger names in the genre a lot of the time, they really hold their own. Pale Saints are also rad as hell.

Also here's a whole shitload of words about Loveless some nerd wrote for a thesis: http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/avail...ullthesis-1.pdf it's actually a pretty interesting read if you've got an hour or three to kill and you're willing to read that much about one album.

Radio Spiricom fucked around with this message at Aug 22, 2011 around 19:10

I would like to drop Curve into the mix. Toni Halliday and company actually toured with the Jesus and Mary Chain and Spiritualized (where Spiritualized actually opened for everyone) on the stateside Rollercoaster tour.

This is off their first LP, Doppleganger. If you like it, definitely check out that album and the subsequent compilation of EP's Pubic Fruit. Between those two albums, there is a sublime collection of what Curve was doing which, for me, was a sweet romance between shoegaze and the electronic sounds that were starting to creep up in the early 90's (see JAMC's Honey's Dead from the same era). Their next LP, Cuckoo, is slightly more edgy but still definitely worth hearing. After that, things taper off into more predictable sound possibly influenced by what was going on with electronic music in the late 90's. By the time Come Clean (their 3rd LP) dropped in 1998, Garbage already had a serious collection of singles and a successful record and though they two had similar sounds at that point Curve got lost in the noise.

To carry on the female vocalist motif, Lush often played gigs with Ride and had a possibly too perfect mix of shoe gaze and what the OP refers to as Dream Pop.

Submarine were a blink-and-you-missed-them shoegaze band that did a superb cover of "Tugboat" on their Kiss Me Until Your Ears Bleed ep, that you should absolutely find if you like the stuff in this thread.

re: Silversun Pickups v. Shoegazey
On the record, they're a fairly straightforward band writing songs that Corgan probably wishes he had written in an attempt to recapture the magic of Siamese Dream. Live, they do get loud and noisy in the most acceptable way possible. Very enjoyable.

This ended up being a fairly lengthy wall of text, so I apologize for any TL;DR sentiments. I do love this particular flavor of music.

hatelull posted:

I'll go ahead and drop Curve into the mix here. Toni Halliday and company actually turned with the Jesus and Mary Chain and Spiritualized (where Spiritualized actually opened for everyone) on the stateside Rollercoaster tour.

Rageaholic Monkey posted:

Silversun Pickups.

Like others have said, they're more Smashing Pumpkins worship than anything but if you like that sound check out Hum. They were a space rock band and contemporaries with Smashing Pumpkins. Their song "Stars" was a minor hit in the 90s.

origami posted:

Maybe I'm old and cranky but your OP is poo poo and irritating and I'm assuming you just stumbled onto 'shoegaze' over the weekend or something.

I don't know if you were expecting a thesis or something but the OP was supposed to be entry level for people who don't know much about the genre.

The Swirlies' Blonder Tongue Audio Baton is a pretty overlooked album from the "US shoegaze-influenced" early 90s rock stuff. It has the whole wall of sound thing, but mixed with a bunch of experimental guitar weirdo stuff that goes from "what the gently caress" to being pretty warm and catchy on nearly every song.

My only problem is that I have no idea what bearing the anime shot had on shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine, or Loveless. I guess it shares a title with maybe the band or the album, but that's as far as my knowledge extends.

hatelull posted:

My only problem is that I have no idea what bearing the anime shot had on shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine, or Loveless. I guess it shares a title with maybe the band or the album, but that's as far as my knowledge extends.

The anime characters are from a anime called "Loveless" which I think is about boys wanting to gently caress each other. I'm not entirely sure as I never bothered to investigate for obvious reasons. There ya go.

Mowglis Haircut posted:

You recognise...jokes, don't you?

The Black Stones posted:

The anime characters are from a anime called "Loveless" which I think is about boys wanting to gently caress each other. I'm not entirely sure as I never bothered to investigate for obvious reasons. There ya go.

I guess I don't recognize 'jokes' that lack some modicum of wit. Also, that poo poo is creepy.

To contribute: Catherine Wheel's earlier work had a spacey shoegaze vibe to it but they were never just 'shoegaze' (they could actually write a song). Some of their best tracks are missing from youtube but everyone should give Ferment and Chrome and whirl.

Spiritualized needs to be looked at a bit more than just the one song most people heard in Vanilla Sky. They've been my favorite band for years, and put on the best, and loudest, live shows I've ever had the pleasure of seeing (and this includes the My Bloody Valentine reunion tour). It feels strange to call them shoegaze when they tend to span a few other genres, but when they do shoegaze, they do it right. Their first album, Lazer Guided Melodies, is my absolute favorite album ever, and (in my opinion) the peak of the shoegaze/dream pop genre.

And here's a weird one. Back in the early 90s, Blur and Slowdive used to attend each others concerts pretty regularly. This lead to Blur becoming a little bit interested in shoegaze, and creating easily their finest b-side (and probably the one one worth a drat), Sing.

TheIndividual posted:

[They] put on the best, and loudest, live shows I've ever had the pleasure of seeing

Admittedly, I'm responding to this because your username is tits. However, this cannot be said enough. These guys will absolutely destroy live. I am rarely, if ever, a fan of live albums but their double disc Live at Royal Albert Hall is one of my favorite things ever. An absolutely brilliant band who totally deserve their own thread. New album next year!

hatelull posted:

Admittedly, I'm responding to this because your username is tits. However, this cannot be said enough. These guys will absolutely destroy live. I am rarely, if ever, a fan of live albums but their double disc Live at Royal Albert Hall is one of my favorite things ever. An absolutely brilliant band who totally deserve their own thread. New album next year!

I couldn't get into Songs in A&E - sounded like a completely different band to me. Pierce may have lost it or something.

hatelull posted:

I was completely expecting that link link to be "Black Metallic", so thanks for the surprise.

origami posted:

I couldn't get into Songs in A&E - sounded like a completely different band to me. Pierce may have lost it or something.

Keep in mind that prior to recording that album the dude had a fierce case of pneumonia and from what I've read, technically died twice while in the hospital. It's different to be sure, and overall probably not my favorite. However, I think there are some stellar tracks ("Death Take Your Fiddle", any of the 'Fire' tracks, and everything after "Harmony 5"). The material translated way better live.

I've seen shit you people wouldn't believe. Cop cars on fire off the shoulder of I-94. I watched search lights glitter in the dark near the Ambassador Bridge. All those moments will be lost in time, like piss in the drain. Time to retch.

TheIndividual posted:

Spiritualized.. put on the best, and loudest, live shows I've ever had the pleasure of seeing (and this includes the My Bloody Valentine reunion tour).

I'm sorry, but there is no way in hell that a Spiritualized show is louder than a My Bloody Valentine Show. Maybe the way SPZ navigates dynamics makes their crescendos feel more intense, but MBV actually did damage to the venues I saw them in with their volume.

chime_on posted:

I'm sorry, but there is no way in hell that a Spiritualized show is louder than a My Bloody Valentine Show. Maybe the way SPZ navigates dynamics makes their crescendos feel more intense, but MBV actually did damage to the venues I saw them in with their volume.

You're probably right, in all honesty, but the dynamic range does make for a more powerful show, in my opinion. Still, enough loudness snobbery. On to more tunes!

Chapterhouse put out a couple really great albums and often get ignored in these discussions. I don't really know much about them, but they're pretty poppy. Very enjoyable stuff. Breather happens to be one of my favorite album openers, though Pearl has some unfortunately dated-sounding production.

Primal Scream has taken some nice detours into -gaze, including having Kevin Shields as a guitarist for a brief moment. They tend to be a bit more of a dance band, but their few -gaze songs are pretty brilliant and well worth listening to. Check out the albums Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR for them at their most spaced out.

The Radio Dept are one of my absolute favorite bands of the 2000s, so if you haven't already, you should absolutely check them out. All three albums are near perfect, so start at the beginning and work your way through to see the progression.